M

There are at least three different ways to spell these similar-sounding surname beginnings, so always double check.

The city in South African is currently spelled Mahikeng. It’s OK to refer to Baden-Powell’s historical role at the siege of Mafeking (how it was spelled at the time) in the Second Boer War.

Avoid this outdated term. Instead try ‘previous name’ or phrase it like ‘Ashley Smith (born Ashley Jones)’. Note that this is only relevant when someone’s old name is well-known (and they’re happy for you to share it), for example, if someone gets married and changes their name. Never use or reveal someone’s old or birth name (sometimes called a dead name), if they have transitioned to another gender.

Don’t call Great Britain the ‘mainland’ when differentiating it from Northern Ireland.

Both one word if you’re talking about the nouns. If you’re looking for the verb, to make up is to become friends again after falling out.

Not Majorca.

A Hindu temple.

Use humankind or humanity instead.

Use artificial or synthetic instead.

A vital (and frequently used) Scout term, so make sure you spell it right.

Double ‘l’ please. ‘Marvelous’ is the American spelling.

Is lower case and is celebrated, not said or read.

Don’t worry too much about this as the subtle distinction between the two is starting to disappear. However, it’s still useful to know the difference.

May is used to express what is possible, factual, or could be factual – it implies a possibility remains open (or that someone has permission, as in ‘you may ask someone in Creative, if you need help’). Might expresses something hypothetical or remotely possible, or a possibility that’s no longer open.

Need some examples to make that clear? No problem. 

‘Allowing girls to join may have been the best thing that ever happened to Scouts’ (girls are allowed in, and it could be the best thing that happened), compared to ‘allowing girls to join might have been the best thing that’s ever happened to Scouts’ (if only they’d been allowed in).

‘They may have gone climbing, or they may have gone boating’ suggests the writer doesn't know what they did. ‘They might have gone climbing if the weather had been dry’ means they didn't go climbing, because it wasn't dry. 

They may lose their jobs, go on holiday, or have dessert. If they hurry, they might be on time and keep their jobs.

May Day is 1 May – the ancient Northern Hemisphere spring festival is celebrated differently in many cultures. The lower case mayday is a distress signal.

Always lowercase, whether it’s the mayor of London or a small town.

We always use the metric system. Length is one exception (we still use miles rather than kilometres) and occasionally, it makes sense to use pints (but in most cases, such as recipes, stick to litres and millilitres).

You can shorten millimetres or centimetres to mm and cm, but don’t add an ‘s’ after either, and don’t leave a space between the number and the unit. For example, 50mm, 12cm. If you’re writing the number out in full, write out centimetres too (for example, five centimetres). 

Write metres out in full, to avoid confusion with million (though there are some cases where it’s obvious enough, for example, if you’re talking about someone who ‘won the 100m sprint’).

A cityin Saudi Arabia. Muslims consider it to be the holiest city of Islam. Don’t use ‘Mecca’ to describe anywhere else (to say it attracts certain people). For example, don’t say ‘Gilwell Park isa mecca for Scouts’ – find another way to phrase it.

If you’re just going to meet someone, you don’t normally need to add ‘with’ (though you might want to use it if you’re saying someone ‘met with disaster’, for example).

The place Scouts go to do Scouts. Not all meeting places are alike – some people might meet in a hut or a hall, but not everyone will. Calling it a ‘meeting place’ means your writing is relevant to everyone (plus, it sounds a little less odd than ‘hut’ for people outside Scouts).

Lower case, for all members of Scouts. It makes it neater since we don’t capitalise these words as adjectives (for example, membership figures) and we’d refer to non-members without capitalisation.

The old website bursting with information on every aspect of Scouts. It used to go by other names, including ‘Information and Resources’ and ‘Support and Resources’. Now, we’re working on bringing everything over to scouts.org.uk.

Scouts get their Membership Award once they’ve found out about their section and how to join it, and have become a Scout by making their Promise. The award is a round purple badge with a white fleur-de-lis, the international Scout symbol worn by Scouts all over the world. It’s also known as the World Membership Badge.

Just as everyone with a body has a physical health, everyone with a brain has a mental health. Be careful not to talk about ‘mental health’ (which everyone has) when you mean ‘mental illness’ or ‘mental health problems’; approximately one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. 

Just like any other condition, people ‘have’ conditions like bipolar disorder and depression, they don’t ‘suffer from’ them, and they’re never ‘anorexics’ or ‘schizophrenics’.

Terms such as psychotic and OCD should only ever be used in a medical context – don’t talk about ‘schizophrenia’ when you mean ‘in two minds’, and remember that OCD is a serious mental health condition; it doesn’t just mean liking order or cleanliness.  

If you have to talk about suicide, avoid the words ‘commit’ (suicide hasn’t been a criminal act in the UK since 1961) and ‘successful’. Keep it plain: talk about people ‘taking’ or ‘ending’ their lives, or even ‘killing themselves’.

Never include triggering or detailed information or images, including details of suicide or self-harm methods, numbers around eating disorders, or graphic pictures of injuries or bodies.

It’s often best to include content warnings before talking about topics that could be distressing, for example, suicide or self-harm. Always signpost to organisations such as Mind, Samaritans, and NSPCC, and it’s a good idea to remind people of the Yellow Card, too.

For more information about how we talk about people and their conditions, see disability. (According to the UK government, a mental health condition is considered a disability if it has a long-term effect on someone’s normal day-to-day activity.)

See measurements.

One word.

Abbreviate to m for sums of money or inanimate objects (for example, £10m, or 45m tonnes of marshmallows). Write out in full for people or animals (one million people, 23 million cats).

All lower case, including the prime minister.

Always a lowercase m.

Only capitalise module if it’s naming a specific module (for example, ‘Module A: prepare to takeoff’). If you’re talking in general about ‘some modules’ or even ‘this module’, keep it lowercase please. As with all titles, only use an initial capital for the title, not any subtitles separated by a colon.

Should be capitalised, as should Sun.

More than is better than ‘over’, for example, ‘there were more than 500 Cubs at our summer camp’.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Use it once (with no abbreviation), then call it the Mormon church after that.

A Muslim place of worship, an area reserved for communal prayer. Mosques are often domed buildings, and they often have a structure that indicates the direction of Mecca, a platform for preaching, and a courtyard with water for people to wash themselves before prayer.

Capital letters and an apostrophe before the ‘s’, please. Remember that this might be a tricky time for a lot of people – not everyone (and not every young person) lives with, knows, or has a positive relationship with their mum. 

Always lowercase.

The specific award (which Scouts earn as they move between sections) should be capitalised and shouldn’t have any hyphens.

But lower case if you’re writing it out in full as ‘member of parliament’ or ‘member of the Scottish parliament’.

Spell it like this when you’re talking about the prophet. If it’s someone’s name, spell it however they do.  

It depends. Are you talking about a general mum, or a specific person called Mum? For example, ‘please could you ask your mum if she’ll help at Cubs next week?’ ‘Sure, I’ll ask Mum if she’s available.’

Say 'predominantly Muslim groups.' You could also say:

• groups reaching a Muslim community
• groups with mostly Muslim members
• groups designed to be accessible to young Muslims

We're avoiding the term 'Muslim Scout groups,' as every group must be inclusive to all demographics. A group can still be designed to appeal to a certain demographic, so a group may have young people 'predominantly' from that demographic, such as 'predominantly Muslim groups.'